Assigned a broad range of tasks in an entertaining show Thursday night at Cain Park in Cleveland Heights, the company's Summer Dance Intensive students executed them all with panache, enlivening even dull choreography with sheer energy, commitment and talent.

Same goes for the company's professional members. Charged with choreography ranging from average to brilliant, the dancers put on striking performances of their own and joined director Bill Wade in teaching and guiding some 30 novices to glory.

Eight short works, including several premieres, made for a full and diverse night. Best of all, some of the dances were gems, readily compatible with a handful of tried-and-true selections from the company's repertoire.

Among the new offerings, the most effective was "Lost Boys," by Inlet member Joshua Brown. Dressed like soldiers, eight male dancers slowly carried, flipped and pushed each another with hopeful faces across the stage, displaying incredible athleticism and embodying the term band of brothers.

A company-wide improvisation also proved oddly compelling. Out of three upper-body seed gestures, 30-plus dancers proceeded to craft on the spot a veritable dance ecosystem populated by exotic creatures slinking and undulating in every direction.

No less entrancing was Wade's "Ascension," the show's finale. Had the three couples in the 2006 company classic not trusted and balanced each other, they would have fallen to the floor. As it was, however, each pair accomplished great feats of strength and daring, proving three times over that two working together are truly better than one.

Several other works invited admiration primarily for the performances. The object of Wade's lively "War Effort Eves," for instance, was unclear, while his "Amusette" simply propagated classical-music stereotypes. Company creations "Embracing Connections" and "Insurgence," meanwhile, were also a bit confusing, even as they contained stunning visual patterns and treated such weighty themes as intimacy and conformity.

The grand slam Thursday was surely "A Close Shave," a second Wade hit from 2006. What began as a man interacting with his three-dimensional reflection broke down into a humorous, all-out brawl with one's sense of self, with Brown and Dominic Moore-Dunson tossing and grappling with each other like ticked-off acrobats.

Experience paid off greatly here. Inlet's trainees might have been up to the work's physical challenges, but it was company members adding personality who made it meaningful as well.

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